So let’s see if I’ve got this right. The President asks for the FBI director’s loyalty. Then he asks the FBI director to stop investigating Flynn. When he refuses, Trump fires him.

The administration’s stated reason is the assistant AG’s report that pointed to flaws in the Hillary investigation. Then the assistant AG takes umbrage, and indicates that he didn’t cause Flynn to be fired. Then Trump says no, it was me all along, and cites unhappiness with the Russia investigation.

Then it comes out that Comey has a memo describing Trump’s attempt to stop the investigation. People start talking about obstruction of justice. So yesterday Trump goes back to the first story, it was the assistant AG’s report, not the Russia investigation.

Getting dizzy? Trump’s just getting warmed up.

Then we find out that Trump met with some top Russian officials, including a top spy. (Let’s not even get into leaking the secret intel from Israel.) And at the meeting with America’s adversary, Trump brags that he fired the “nut job” FBI director who was investigating the Russian hacking of the 2016 election (that’ll discourage them from doing it in 2020!), and that this took the pressure off him. Now (by implication) he’ll be free to do more pro-Russia policies.

Let’s not even talk about the fact that while he was patting the Russians on the back and telling them he fired the FBI director over the Russia probe, he was telling the American public something completely different. Or that he lied to the reporter who recently asked him whether he had ever tried to in any way impede the investigation.

And the White House doesn’t deny that he said this to the Russians. Why? After all, weren’t they denying that Trump tried to get Comey to stop the Flynn investigation? So they deny the less serious charge, but then act like the more serious charge is nothing.

Psychological projection is a theory in psychology in which humans defend themselves against their own unconscious impulses or qualities (both positive and negative) by denying their existence in themselves while attributing them to others.

PPS. As the end approached, Nixon was showing signs of being mentally unbalanced. Here is the NYT:

In the days leading up to Nixon’s resignation in August 1974, Mr. Schlesinger, as he confirmed years later, became so worried that Nixon was unstable that he instructed the military not to react to White House orders, particularly on nuclear arms, unless cleared by him or Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger.

But of course Nixon was an idiot who knew nothing about foreign policy, whereas Trump has a sophisticated understanding of when it is appropriate to use nuclear bombs. Trump is also not at all immature and impulsive, even when being attacked, and is very good at taking advice from experts when they tell him he is wrong.

Seriously, Schlesinger’s action was not legal, and we should not expect it to be repeated. Here’s the sad truth:

When Trump takes office in January, he will have sole authority over more than 7,000 warheads. There is no failsafe. The whole point of U.S. nuclear weapons control is to make sure that the president — and only the president — can use them if and whenever he decides to do so. The one sure way to keep President Trump from launching a nuclear attack, under the system we’ve had in place since the early Cold War, would have been to elect someone else.

Lincoln massacred many Americans who opposed the will of the president. He suspended Habeas Corpus too.

The details of this story are mostly anonymous tips from unnamed sources. And this is being reported by organizations who aren’t the least bit honest and are determined to bash the President and leader of our great nation.

You mean that super secret info that anyone, including Russians, could read in several American newspapers, including the NY Times? This secret intel from the March 22nd Times:

———quote——-
Devices Banned on Some Planes Over ISIS Fears

“Intelligence showing that the Islamic State is developing a bomb hidden in portable electronics spurred the United States and Britain on Tuesday to bar passengers from airports in a total of 10 Muslim-majority countries from carrying laptop computers … two senior American counterterrorism officials said. …”
——–endquote——

“Then it comes out that Comey has a memo describing Trump’s attempt to stop the investigation.”

But that memo was describing an alleged event after the investigation cleared Flynn

“Then we find out that Trump met with some top Russian officials, including a top spy.”

Of course, he considers Russia an ally in the fight against terrorism

“(Let’s not even get into leaking the secret intel from Israel.)”

Oh but we should get into that:

Ron Dermer, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, did not comment directly on the report.

“Israel has full confidence in our intelligence-sharing relationship with the United States and looks forward to deepening that relationship in the years ahead under President Trump,” Dermer said in a statement.

DNC staffer Seth Rich was assassinated for leaking the DNC emails to Wikileaks, and for discovering massive voter fraud that the Hillary campaign orchestrated to oust Bernie Sanders. Duplicate voting stations, vote tabulation replacements, it is all going mainstream, and that is exactly why there has been over the last week or so a gigantic coordinated fake news domination from the CIA led MSM. It is an act of desperation. They know their time is ticking.

“When Trump takes office in January, he will have sole authority over more than 7,000 warheads. There is no failsafe. The whole point of U.S. nuclear weapons control is to make sure that the president — and only the president — can use them if and whenever he decides to do so. The one sure way to keep President Trump from launching a nuclear attack, under the system we’ve had in place since the early Cold War, would have been to elect someone else.”

————-quote————-
BuzzFeed reported Tuesday night that under a unique intelligence-sharing agreement, Israel had told the US of ISIS plots to smuggle explosive laptops onto planes.

Having shared threats in the Middle East, cooperation between the intelligence communities of Israel and the United States has always been close and intensified starting in the early 2000s, despite Israel not being a part of the “Five Eyes” – a term used for the core countries involved in surveillance- sharing – Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States.

Russia had earlier dismissed reports first published by The Washington Post, calling it “fake news.” But facing a deluge of criticism over his handling of highly classified information, Trump took to Twitter earlier Tuesday, defending having shared “facts” with senior Russian officials, saying he had an “absolute right” to do so and had been trying to get Moscow to become more active in combating Islamic State.

“As president, I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety,” he posted on Twitter. “Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.”

Trump’s acknowledgment that he gave sensitive information during a White House meeting last week undercut intense efforts by senior aides to play down the incident on Monday evening after news reports emerged of Trump’s conversations about a planned Islamic State operation.

—————endquote————–

So, unless you can provide a different piece of ‘intel’ I think it’s pretty clear we’re talking about something already well known, and reported in newspapers.

What is more interesting in the above linked to JP story is this bit (since we were speaking of treason);

————quote———–
On January 12, Yediot Aharonot reported that US officials had warned their Israeli counterparts to be cautious in sharing classified intelligence with the Trump administration, concerned that it could be leaked to Russia and Iran.

On January 16 and February 6, The Jerusalem Post, in an interview with former CIA and NSA director Michael Hayden and other former US and Israeli officials, reported that those concerns might be exaggerated.

However, Hayden did say there were dangers of perception.

“If there is a danger, and I don’t know it to be true, it is that countries might be less enthusiastic to share with the US, not because of leaks, but because the US may not act on it,” said Hayden.

For example, if Trump’s “seeming disregard for intelligence – if that actually becomes the approach of his administration,” then there could be more general issues with intelligence sharing with the US.
————–endquote————-

The Obama Administration, on its way out the door, tried to compromise the ability of the new Admin to perform its constitutional duties to defend the USA.

Scott, can you please cut it out with the Trump stuff? I started reading this blog because it was logical and carefully thought out. Others were relying on intuition and bias regarding monetary policy, and you were looking at the evidence.

You’re letting your bias come through with the Trump stuff. He has a lot of issues, but this blog is turning into another person venting about Trump on the internet- economic analysis and dispassionate discussion is becoming few and far between. It makes me not want to read. Bring back the Money Illusion material that made you popular!

Any soldier or officer whatsoever can refuse a superior’s order if it is illegal. In particular, if it violates proportionality. In a conversation with a military type during the election, regarding plans to use indiscriminate bombing, he said ‘The generals wouldn’t order it, the planners wouldn’t plan it, and the pilots wouldn’t fly it.’ Law and conduct are very big parts of Western Staff training.

Concerning the treason comment, almost nothing Trump does is technically illegal because he is the President (and hence exempt from various ethics laws due to separation of powers). America is doomed. We should really consider switching to a prime-minister system. That way, even when the public makes an idiotic decision (Brexit), intelligent bureaucrats can shield them from the consequences of their stupidity.

They did, but they decided to abandon parliamentary democracy in favor of a citizen referendum. No way the tories could have conjured a Brexit vote through parliament alone. In any case, the consequences from Brexit will be mitigated by the fact that PM May is not a bumbling moron.

Patrick, About 99% of intelligence experts that I have heard disagree with you.

Matthew, That’s good to know. Thanks.

John, I don’t fully agree. I think it simply means that Congress determines whether he has committed a crime, not the courts. But Congress still has the prerogative to find him guilty of treason if they so choose. I admit they won’t do so on current evidence, but Trump’s skirting on the edge by seeming to side with the Russians on the election hacking issue.

Trump could be fighting child rapists and trying to put more of them in jail, and you would be here on this blog imagining Trump to be a child rapist.

Wait…

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Welcome to a new blog on the endlessly perplexing problem of monetary policy. You’ll quickly notice that I am not a natural blogger, yet I feel compelled by recent events to give it a shot. Read more...

Bio

My name is Scott Sumner and I have taught economics at Bentley University for the past 27 years. I earned a BA in economics at Wisconsin and a PhD at Chicago. My research has been in the field of monetary economics, particularly the role of the gold standard in the Great Depression. I had just begun research on the relationship between cultural values and neoliberal reforms, when I got pulled back into monetary economics by the current crisis.